Stay High
by charliespike18
Summary: 'Amelia Shepherd feels alone, standing in her brother's house six weeks after his death. So freaking alone.Everyone is gone or dead – they've all run away from it. And it hurts. Just a little but she can't feel it - she's over the dead brother thing, isn't she' - How Amelia copes during the year after her brother's death.


**_Title: Stay High_**

 ** _Pairings (Mentioned or otherwise): Amelia/Owen, Meredith/Derek_**

 ** _Rating/Warning: T_**

 ** _Summary:_ _'Amelia Shepherd feels alone, standing in her brother's house six weeks after his death. So freaking is gone or dead – they've all run away from it. And it hurts. Just a little but she can't feel it - she's over the dead brother thing, isn't she?' - How Amelia copes during the year after her brother's death._**

 _..._

 _I've got to stay high all the time - to keep you off my mind._

 _High, all my life to forget I'm missing you. – Habits (Stay High), Tove Lo_

…

Amelia Shepherd feels alone, standing in her brother's house six weeks after his death.

So freaking alone.

Everyone is gone or dead – they've all run away from it.

And it hurts.

Just a _little_

But she can't feel it –

She's over the dead brother thing, isn't she?

….

She looks down at the patient and then over at the stats monitor before calmly pronouncing time of death.

When she gets out Richard wants to talk to her.

 _It was a hard loss_ , he says. _Are you alright?_ he asks but she isn't listening.

It's just work – it doesn't matter really, does it? – it's just a job.

She feels like she's on her own – that no one else sees it that way

She can't home, not back to the ghosts, not _again_.

She's just lonely – that's what she says – it's no big deal.

She's goes to the house anyway and just carries on – because she's alright isn't she?

Sometimes she thinks she's just a little too good at being lonely.

…

She talks to Jackson sometimes, asks after April – asks how his wife is doing.

They talk too, of surgeries and patients and any other than how much it hurts.

Once, they talk about their babies, the children they lost.

Just once, because it hurts far too much – and once is _enough_.

Amelia likes talking with Jackson because for a moment she doesn't feel so alone.

It feels good.

But then Jackson's just as broken as she is, isn't he?

….

Callie comes round a few times, Arizona too, but they don't know.

They don't know anything.

They both think they're making it better but it only gets worse.

That's how it's always been for her, even if it's bad it can be worse, everything can always be worse.

They try to tell her that it's not her fault but she doesn't believe them.

They don't know –

They don't know –

 _They don't know_ – every man she ever loved is dead and Owen, well Owen was smart.

He knew that a warzone was safer than being with her.

…

Her mother phones twice a day,

Her sisters are constantly texting

And Addison emails her every week

They're all so worried about her –

Amelia guesses it's their way of grieving, making sure she's not going to disappear in to oblivion.

But none of them feel as guilty as she does

She has lost so many people you think she'd have a better way to cope with it

With the guilt

Because it's her fault

Never mind what her mom or her sisters or Addison say

It is.

She knows –

Her dad, Ryan, her son, Derek

She should've saved them all

Oh, but she couldn't -

Amy was never _quite_ good enough, was she?

….

She misses Meredith and the kids more than she lets on

She misses the noise and the people

She misses how it used to be

And she's angry

Why does Meredith get to _escape_?

Why?

She has no right,

But then again

It's what Amelia wants to do,

Get way

But instead

It's what everyone does to her

They run away

And leave little Amy all on her own

It's just how it's always been

….

Derek knew how it felt to lose their dad -

To watch him die right in front of them

No one else did, ever

Maybe that's why he was always so protective of her?

He knew how it hurt

How it ripped you apart

But no one knows how it feels to lose him - _Derek_

Like she has

Not when she was already in pieces

Sometimes she wonders if she's been broken into so many fragments that the hurt can't touch her

Not any more at least

But she does, oh she feels it.

Ah well, it was a nice theory.

…

Richard tries again to talk to her,

Asking her if she wants coffee

But she can't take the fussing and the questions any longer

She shouts because she dealt with it all before

Amelia Shepherd doesn't need someone to tell her how to cope

And then she sees him - Owen

And she's suddenly _scared_

Because she is a hurricane and she can only hurt him

…

She wants to be high

Because being high is the only way she can forget completely

How it feels

But then, has she really felt it yet?

It's why she got addicted in the first place, she thinks,

To stop hurting

To forget

Because everything was always _too_ much

But she knows too that she can't stay high forever

And it's the fall that's going to kill her.

….

Owen tells her she isn't coping

Oh but she is

Just not it the way that is normal

Or healthy

Or right

She's grieving in a way that will _destroy_ her in the end

He saves her

Just for a little bit

…

It hurts

And she doesn't want to feel it

Because she has before and

Amy promised herself that she wouldn't ever have to again

But then again, she never though she'd lose Derek – did she?

She's lost so many people she can't find

People she can never find

Even if she spends her life looking

And she doesn't want to feel it

And then she does

And it hurts just like she remembers it

But this time

She's got Owen

And that makes it _better_

Just a little

Not a lot

Just a little

But enough

….

 _ **A/N Any thoughts?**_


End file.
